St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-06-23
COL. INGERsoLL,s JUG.
How He Sent a Present and Got Tenn
perance Lecture I'm Reply.
Mem YorE S,,u


Neao York Sun.
My Dear Colonel: You remember,
presume, once sending your friend a
jug of chronic whiskey bearing this
label of praise to his enemy:
l send you some of the most wonder
full whiskey that ever drove skeleton
from the feast or painted landscapes
i'm the brain of man. 1t is the min
gled souls of wheat aud corn. In it
you will find the sunshine and the
shadow that chased each other over
the billowy fields, the breath of June,
the carol of the lark, the dews of night.
the wealth of summer, and autumn's
rich content, all golden with impris
oned light. Drink it, and you will
hear the voice of men and maidens
singing the Harvest Home," mingled
with the laughter of children. Drink
it, and you will feel within your blood
the startled dawns, the dreamy, tawny
dusks of many perfect days. For 40
years this liquid joy has been within
the happy slaves of oak, longing to
touch the lips of man.
Of course, colonel, You will be glad
to learn how it and he took to each
other.
Well, believing you, he drank of
that jug till "the skeleton it drove
from the feast" came and sat in ugly
profile on his hearthstone-drank till
tIt1 8l1scapes in blossom on the walls
a1le he pilfered and pawned to
<II5r arid Landscapes in his
&as "the mingled souls of
HzIz &zze eorn,n yOa told him; but
8 e. half had finished, it stole away
Ri last reluctant kernel garnered for
lowing children, and it cOnjured "the
mingled souls" of evil-doing and pau
per living to drive out the radiant
spirits of manhood and a plenteOus
life.
Still he hoped, for you told him he'd
find in it sunshine; yet in it he found
only raven shadows, each Tapping
wings blacker than it's elder fellow
shadows that chased each other with
buzzard greed, for both carcass and
the immortal, and chased their victim
out of the great armchair of rich con-
tent up to the rough pine stool in the
dismal garnet, while close beside him
they chased into that NANCY shelter
the last of one loving woman with the
broken soul, her fever-pinched young
John and little starveling Mary. In
it, too, he found, not your pansy breath
of June, the carol of the lark, and the
dews of night that kiss the coming
corn, but the stark mad blast OF De-
cember, the bark of the wolf at his
door, and the Wondering damps OF the
night of despair.
Then YOU sang to him of the wealth
of summer and autumn's rich content
that should Irvine the neck of your
ID l~,f r ftuin fnr m
a barren summer to an angry winter
and rags that knit themselves together
in "imprisOned" darkness.
Yet the friend of your fascinating
enemy drank on till, down in the fes-
tering cellar and the crawling sawdust,
he lOafed and listened for your CHAR
vest Home," but heard only your bru-
tai men and maidens utter maudlin
blasphemy of the Master and caught
the melody of their shame in brace OF
unclean song. Why, sir, he drank Till
the heavenly laughter of little children
round his knee died away into restless
moaning-died into the dying child's
whispered wall for bread
Drank Yea, fast and deep he
drank your dreamy potion OF, till
deep and fast within his blood he felt,
never one startled dawn, but forever a
life eclipsed, the sun of the future al
ways setting, sinking through the
tawny dusks of the clOuded mind
toward that midnight which fOretells
no day into the final gloom of the
drunkard-the damnatiOn that's end
less in its desOlatiOn!
There, declining foe, you'll find your
friend, and the days of his homage to
your deformed genius being spent, he'll
gather courage to say: "Col. lnger-
soil, if from out thy earthern cask
hath crept unto me one liquid joy, it
is that here look upon it's giver eter
nally kennelled beside the offspring of
his gift, thy soul weary, scorched
and quenchless messmate at the feast
of thy betrayed-the host that wOr-
shipped thee and the feast whence
the Skeleton shall never depart |"
Sir. Robert, in uDgrateful beguile-
ment of many unstable souls and the
crush of sweet homes only sOberness
can build, none-nO, not One-hath so
measured up to the warped, unwasha-
BILE Crosby as hast thou in thy stanza
of prose accrediting with life the
death begetting sweat of the still.
JAMES CLEMENT AMBROSE.
Evanston, H., June 8, 1887.